& We're off!

2013 started off with me hitting the ground running here & it doesn't look like the pace is going to let up! :)

I've just gotten back (last Fri) from the week long Academy of Equine Art workshop I taught in Aiken, SC.    It's a wonderful location and I highly recommend it if you have a horsie event there you're considering.    The horse barns are sort of clustered together on what (to me) are the equivalent of city streets.. clay sand but still a sandy little urban horsie community - fascinating! :)  Having a local resident to show us the track (wet & damp on Tues or nicer below that on Friday at dawn)... & it's well known (dare I say infamous) 'Track Kitchen' .  My wonderful hostess Wendy also secured for us an ideal live models for hands on study;  two horses everyone could see flex & bend and actually touch in order to study the limbs of.  These wonderful subjects were at a lovely traditional Aiken barn owned by her friend Lesli.  Having Wendy to get us these was a big factor in making it worthwhile.  My advice is (always actually) definitely go with a local guide if you do travel there!

I really really enjoyed having such an eager group to work with and a diverse one!  I learn so much myself every time I get to work one on one with students.  In the future I do think I'm going to limit classes to no more than 6.   To cover so much material (and I didn't quite get everything and not as thoroughly as I'd hoped.. even in a whole week)... takes just so much time and one on one with each student. That's my preferred approach anyhow.  For some aspects of biomechanics or the sculpting itself, sure, straight lecture is fine, but there are other points for which just being able to see what everyone is doing and point out key things is absolutely the only way I can work.   I know I overwhelmed everyone with TONS of info.. hope they will ultimately be more inspired than intimidated in the long run.  Casting was an area where there were the most questions and of course it's got an infinite # of answers really (if you can dream it, you could probably figure out a way to do it).  Well, I could go on and on.. it was a whole week after all!  I'm still a tad overwhelmed/coming off that buzz though myself. :)

My photographic skills for the group weren't great.  It's a small miracle I remembered to take a group shot in the end!  (I don't feel comfortable typing full names here but this is, left to right Lisa, Donna and Lynda!) :)  There were several leg sculpting exercises, then 1 day on a small overall horse shape to learn some armature aspects (sans tails, yes..) and proportion concepts.. then the last couple of days were spent on the busts and adding in the more fun details.  So that's what's up with this.  Again there were some field trips and lots of additional show and tell topics to round off a course that covers things most workshops typically don't that I know of (and answers questions I get all the time).  Since a few students there had taken other more traditional start-to-finish horse sculpting workshops I was glad to provide new and different information and even get everyone the chance to experiment with new materials.

And of course here is our adorable studio cottage dog (studio dogs are a must!). She is celebrating the end of all that windbag blonde lady's lecturing and all that excruciatingly boring art stuff here in her romp! ;)

Since this is a studio blog I need to update on the studio scene here:  Swimming mare is having her seaweed cast literally probably as I type here.  She herself will get cast just as soon as my materials arrive in stock here.  Then there is some more clean up.. then she will be released!



I don't plan to dawdle too much on getting this edition out there as I have an added challenge that we finally found our house!  After moving down here to central North Carolina from New England 3 years ago the "plan" was for us to save and eventually buy our farm homestead.. was of course off to a very rough start for the first year, year and a half really.  Eventually we got rolling and found our rolling pastures & acreage just a couple weeks ago when we were only looking very casually.  The work buildings are a bonus, we were figuring there was no way around having to build 2 (his and hers) workshops so how ideal is this?!

 As you can see it has an ideal studio for me (half the front building on the window side), where I can expand someday to working on larger scale sculptures.  I really miss that.  In college and even high school I would embark on life sized heads now & then but truly you need planning and proper materials and (learned the hard way) doing this in your kitchen is impractical and most people don't approve of that. ;)

[removed pics since it won't be our house after all - see April 5th post]

Not safe for horses of course but it comes with a lovely historic barn - I'm in love with the older barn styles down here so this is just icing on the cake for us.  It does keep hay dry though we observed, bonus!

So there's hope for horses again in my future.. all that acreage was the whole reason we chose this part of the state/country really (maybe in a few years, I do want to rescue a geriatric horse - I can justify it by the need to have a studio model for hands on lessons for students!).

MEANWHILE --> today/next...  I have another fine bone China Kipling coming up for auction.  I've also got news and detailed explanations for my group coming tonight on how the last 7 CMGs being offered up for customer designs will go...

(this guy is going up tonight on 'My Auction Barn'!)

And in keeping with what everyone does when buying homes/moving, I'll be going through my possessions in the coming month & seeing what I sell.. so additional sales items to come too!

Whew!  This doesn't even cover the half of it but it's been over a month since I last posted so it was time! ;)  Hopefully my next post will be before it's summer.. !  Cheers and here's to warm & cozies (or cool and comfortables), where ever you are!
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A quick PS too -->  didn't mention but there is a small group probably wondering "what about our trophy medallion???!" or on shipped items!  Yesterday I got a large truckload full out to the post office.. and then went home and dove into that trophy medallion  pretty avidly. :D  So your shipped items are on their way & I do hope to have great things to share in the trophy dept in the coming days.   It's been VERY busy here as you can see! :D  All the best gang!
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Man, one more PPS... (hrmph... if I updated more often I wouldn't be throwing together this hodgepodge all at once).  I also have 3 pieces that were accepted (I'm humbled by this huge honor) into the AAEA Spring Invitational.  Details on that are here; http://www.chronofhorse.com/article/aaea-spring-invitational-show-opens-two-locations-april and I know some if not all will be at the Georgetown location.  When I'm more sure of what's where I'll update if I can. :)  I'm hoping my large & quite heavy box made it there safe & sound in the meantime.  Shipping art is a skill I'd rather not have to learn to be honest. ;)  OK, truly - all the best again!

Post your favorite Slow-Mo videos please!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xza74TsTH-c

I collect links to these but only just today found the key to downloading them (a website called Keep Vid).  Which I badly need because with satellite internet out here in the boonies, I get a daily allowance on my internet use.  Watching high-def videos IS possible.. rewatching them over and over (as a sculptor might be want to do for studying purposes!), is likely to get me in trouble for exceeding my daily limit & the reprimand of 24 hrs of super slow internet (they say 'dial up' slow but it's worse than that... you can't even get email at that point nearly).

SO, downloading is like the best thing since sliced bread.  I've been using video since Deputed Duke (so 2003) to really study what's happening in certain poses.  Its really key.  You can know all the anatomy you want to (and I had a couple of college courses where there was lots of it, comparative & straight up anatomy & physiology)... but understanding what happens as the leg takes on weight and various muscle groups come into play, and  HOW they look as they come into play in concert... this isn't something some hashed out schematics of muscling can tell us, and it varies so vastly with every pose, and nuances of poses where weight (build) and fitness of the horse come into play.

There are still times (but fewer and fewer!), when online videos just won't have what you're looking for though.. for example again with Duke and his half pass I really needed to see what happens to those shoulder muscles when the whole scapula swings inward some as the chest muscles pull it over.  It's not like the trot swing forward because of the new direction the leg is partially going in (the movement is equal parts forwards and sideways and can be done in very slow or pretty fast tempo).  I was making a pretty forward moving trot so the degree of reach sideways was  closer to what you might see at the Olympic level.  I videotaped the real horse doing it actually but he wasn't quite Olympic level mind you .. so I decided to go to Gladstone NJ and videotape WEG selection trials.  It was perfect.  I was able to stand on several sides of the ring and videotape a great # of types of horses and really see so many things I normally couldn't.    And thus discovered some muscling that surprised me.  So you tube isn't the end all be all in other words.

Why the sudden call for folk's favorite Slow-Mo video links?  Because I'll be teaching a class for the American Academy of Equine Art in less than 2 months and I'd like to compile some muscles/angles just as I did a decade ago.. except we now have the technology where people don't have to stand next to their VCRs for hours hitting and (frame advance) or what have you to see snippets. More fond memories of high school and college and professors with VCRs. :D

Well here is the info for the course. 

Make no mistake, the videos are something I want to hoard! I use them ALL the time still to be certain for things related to tricky details like points of shoulder, stifle and similar lumps and bumps that really have more complicated movement than can be rendered 3 dimensionally by a mere understanding of how the patella moves with the tibia for example.    I can have people feel the paddle of the scapula like an oar on a moving horse, swiveling as the horse walks (try it if you don't know what I mean, walk alongside a horse and feel the top of the shoulder blade).. it still isn't going to precisely make clear to you when to show such a detail as the scapula edge and when to bury it in muscle - at least not on a moving horse.  And there are some experiences I've been lucky enough to have, like feeling the stifles of a bucking horse, to feel the massive bulging lower edge of the femur,  and when that blob of muscle suddenly becomes a joint, that I don't recommend trying at home (it was a lameness thing the vet wanted me to try to keep an eye on & the young horse objected vehemently).  Still, video close ups with today's High Speed cameras are vastly safer AND allow for seeing things that you can NEVER get hands on understanding of;  high speed horses.

And with that I must get back to it.. I confess, I lost a link to one of my favorite videos of all time - 3 horses just playing in the paddock (warmbloods I think, bay & chestnut).. amazing amazing high def detail of their muscles and great tension as they tossed their heads and pranced.  I know one was being fondly remembered but I can't think of other keywords to help me find it again.  If you've seen it, PLEASE let me know.  I watched it a couple times and then got my internet use shut down for a day the last time I saw it.  Definitely one for the download folder to have & to study (and just to be inspired by!).

Here are nearly 20 videos from Oct  2009 that I formerly shared here;

http://mksculpt.blogspot.com/2009/10/video-archiving-here-today.html

Cheers and hope your 2013 year is off to a spectacular start!

UPDATE!  Someone just sent it to me! <3 can="" def="" high="" iew="" if="" impressive="" it="" me="" nbsp="" p="" s="" so="" to="" yay="" you="">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qifXMitYqNs&list=LLJC7ldaP-4binVm26O_rHIw

 

Sketching & Reflections

This was going to be a post on Friday when I logged in to upload the pictures and discovered the horror that had happened to such innocent souls in my home state.   I was so dismayed and saddened that posting anything like this was out of the question.  I'm still left quite troubled & in deep sorrow over the matter.

That said, I'll simply post some sketches I've done of proposed and completed sculptures.  I have a class with AAEA coming up soon, and other things on the horizon but I'll wait to talk more about that.  For now, just sharing some exercises in sketching sculptures or sculptures to be.  The last being just practice (with no intention of becoming a sculpture, that's just one of my dogs).

 

It's been such a weird holiday season around here.  It's warmer than previous years (I think), even for "the south".  Granted NC isn't as warm as FL in other words but being just a jaunt from Myrtle Beach with palm trees & gators around here & yeah, it's not going to get exactly cold but still, I am pretty sure it's warmer than the last 2 years.  Our first year here it snowed & was nippy at times!  Lately it's been tee or light shirt weather during the days.  We aren't going back for any family holidays up north, and while we have a mini tree and decorations I just am more introspective than anything this season.  I've even been to a couple of holiday parties but still, I dunno.  It looks and feels like early fall to me out there still.  I'll get used to it!  In the meantime, more art underway over here... keeps one on course.

I heard a good quote on a sculpting forum I shared on FBs studio page, but I'll share it here too;  "People ask me, how do I get my ideas? I can only reply that I don’t need ideas, I need metal." David Vanorbeek, Artdeev vanorbeek.com

(and more time!) ;)

Challenging Myself..

A couple of years ago I was discussing with some friends, well, whining really, that my sculptures often are hard to photograph.  This lead to me realizing I'd never formally released any standing horses. .. and at the time I'd had only one standing pose seriously in the works (Johann).

Above "Johann"
This lead to me assigning myself an exercise, much like we all got in college;  find a way to make several different standing horses completely different from one another, yet in essentially the same foot pose.  In addition it became a bit of a mission for me to impart as much personality as possible to a standing work as well - very active and yet, standing AND frozen still for a moment.

Thus my next work to become bronze soon is the culmination of this personal goal;  two extremely different horses in the same foot stance but with hardly even muscle shapes the same (due to varied levels of fitness, or more to the point, lack thereof at least on the part of the pony!). ;)  This work I'm calling "The Odd Couple".

Above "The Odd Couple" comprised of "Kipling" (left) and "Max" on the right.
When sculpting them they were side by side on my bench and really they gave off these vibes of interacting, the pony in this rather pushy (overly inquisitive) fashion and the Criollo stallion in a slightly affronted (or perhaps a bit more bemused) demeanor.   It added another level of goal setting to strive for, works that could both stand alone and yet interact well with each other too.  I'm tickled to see that customers have found the pony similarly fun to play with!

So the progression was Johann, bulgy robust little package of fire, proud and yet frozen in a moment of looking haughtily about (after a real boarder I'd had at my barn).  Then onto Kipling the nudge.. and then Max (who was actually roughed out earlier than Kipling but really not "formed" in my mind yet), followed suit in this stance.   I figured I was done and then Wendy of Destriers by Design commissioned me to do a standing horse in this pose as well.  Ironic but it must have been meant to be.

Above "Nemo" 
Nemo, is in a different scale and was the result of looking at many a Spanish stallion about to launch into a bull fight or speed equitation competition;  and a whole different body type as well again. 

It should almost be no surprise that I'm reverting however to my preference of horses with legs-wildly-akimbo after these four.  Well in fairness in the midst of it I sculpted a laying down foal that was very popular but AGAIN -> he had a the foreshortening photogenic issue I guess I'll always be plagued with;  just doesn't play nice in photographs!   People will probably always get on my case about this, and I'm .. not very sorry I guess.  :)  I really enjoy making works that force a viewer to look at them from a few angles to get the gist of what's going on (half passing,  striking out, flopped on the ground, swimming, even galloping is a bit interactive with the viewer it seems).    As I wrap up the latest challenge I've given myself I wonder about what to do after swimming which led me to thinking about this 'exercise' I've been doing these last few years... and how I never really mentioned it here (at least I don't believe so, buuut I could have, don't throw tomatoes at me if I have!).

Anyhow, off to put up my pre-order page for this bronze of the Odd Couple!  My web site needs several updates tonight!

(& A quickie ps to those that remember, there is a standing foal too - he isn't written off.. but I wouldn't say I've given him any consideration in the last few years either... maybe this is a good time.. hmm!!)

More from me getting out and about!

Like most artists, part of the job is getting out there locally in various situations.  Last weekend there was an event at the Carolina Horse Park that was pretty neat;  a "Flurry (skeet I think?) shoot".  Dog training and birds of prey were also featured.  There were carriage rides too.  It was a very small event really but a lot of fun! 

So this sculpture was one I started to have something canine to show for myself... all of my pet sculptures so far have been one of a kind works that were generally gifted to the owners.   I'm not sure where this guy is going but I'd love to do bronze or cold castings of him & sell a few.  We'll see!  Meanwhile, I took this photo just now for The Pilot which runs a photo to go with Hollyhock's Gallery's "Artist at Work" afternoons.  Yup! Another local venue that I do once a month or so;  the artists in the gallery take turns for the afternoons.  There's a local cooking class in the same building that makes it torture! (& brings in a lot of customers to the gallery between that and the wine tasting in the next room).  Anyhow, so anyone in the Pinehurst NC area, please feel free to drop by!

Anyhow, a few scenes from last weekend here too (maybe there will be some birds of prey in my future portfolio!). ;)

Welsh ponies if I remember correctly - I had a most wonderful chat with a local fellow who's an active member in the very active local driving club.

A Russian owl.  Really exceptionally interesting to watch.  She was hanging out just a few feet behind me with several falcons all day long too.

 My booth, and there I am off to the side... and below I snuck off to try this shotgun thing.  It's nothing I'm too wild about - apparently I find objects coming at me easier to shoot than things passing by.  I hit 2 out of 10 which is fine for my first time. My grandmother had many shooting awards, it was kind of neat.  Me?  Meh.. I've always been an archer. Anyhow though, for what it's worth. :)

And there you have it!  Scenes from an artist out and about in the fall.  Just sharing something a little different here. :)

Dapples in the white part of the coat!

How could I leave this off of the last post - it's AMAZING! (to me anyhow)... Just like I'd only see faint reverse dapples on one of my chestnut horses for a few months of the year when the winter coat was coming in & he stood "just so"... I'll bet Kylee's horse "Gunny" here doesn't have this visible all that easily all the time.  It's not dirt (but he was dirty and cranky & we were running out of sunset light -> that seems to be key).

Check him out;

 Look to the barrel around where the saddle skirt would be/just below the colored marking on his back.  Also across the top of his rump these are faintly visible.  It's subtle but it's undeniable.  Mind you he wasn't the stillest horse I photographed so I consider it lucky we got these! :D  He was ready to "go!" please. ;)

Fall friends, farms & action!

It's not in chronological sequence here but I'm sharing some wonderful horses I was lucky enough to get the chance to photograph recently.   Sculptors need references.. all kinds.. and hundreds of them!  So to get the opportunity this past Sept and Oct to photograph such a wide diversity of ponies was amazing.

Blogger is giving me troubles here but I'll try to caption these as best as possible!

Some of the awesome ponies out at Brookridge Morgans http://www.brookridgemorgans.com/

Below Kennebec Topaz soaks up some love from folks at the South Con show! 

  

I knew more about the big guy but am blanking on who did the work, it's a customized Ann Harris horse (Wellington).  I'm also not 100% on who owns which of these adorable Kiplings but it's cracking me up! :D  

Then on to the next farm... to see Kylee's (Pitch Black Stables) Friesian stallion Axel and some mares and their first foal!     They really did a wonderful job of setting everyone up to give me fabulous photos.  I have some 400 photos in all of everything but here's a few I am rather fond of! :)

 

I'd just like to add that looking at this makes me realize my plan of a 6mo life sized Friesian colt might still be a tad on the enormous side.. I may have to scale that down some.  Kylee isn't short! ;)  This colt cleaned up earlier that week at a Morristown keuring earning "Champion of the day" and "Champion colt".  Go them huh! :D  Anyhow, hugely helpful with my goal of doing a life sized work!!! 

Next stop, the Lucas Francis studio (www.lucasfrancisstudio.com/ ) to learn a few things... Kristina was more than happy to let me airbrush the glaze basecoat for this etchy-appy finish I plan to do but I honestly can say she did wonders... I am not up to par with even the basic layered approaches just yet...(that's her in the spray booth - not me!) but watching her really gave me an idea of how it works.  Airbrushes & I are not always friends too, so to do it with something that is completely unforgiving of mistakes and is not "what you see is what you get" is not the place to start... I'm starting with etching off the hairs here to make a varnish roan appy.  I've blended out the masked white area (after the photo below was taken) there so it's not a big square anymore... but that's as far as I got --> he's a winter project.  At this rate I might turn out one every few years (and of dubious quality!)... but it's good to know and I'm giving it the good ole college try all the same! :D

The next day there was an invite from a friend of her's to visit some Spanish Norman horses so off we went!  As you can see, sculptors don't value normal "pretty" pictures -> we want things like photos of the undersides of jowls...

 

Then off to her friend's mother's home to photograph another bad boy -- a rather rare Spanish Norman from a bay Andalusian.  

Objects in mirror were actually closer than they appeared here.  He was not pleased that we held him back to photograph while his pals went inside... we're in the middle of the paddock here & that's him buzzing of the tower as I like to call it.  Below, yes (!!!) another shot from a great new angle of those tendons I so dig!

His absolutely loveable mom (Percheron).

Now while he's greatly peeved here, lol -> doesn't he look like he's singing soulfully?

Backing up in time, this is from 3 weeks ago in Sept when I went out to Kentucky to the AAEA Fall show.  Heather Moreton, an avid photographer, set me up with several saddlebred farms to shoot at and then out to the Kentucky Horse Park (where normally I don't have enough time to walk around & photograph anything when I'm out there).  Again, visiting ASBs you'd think I'd be after the stereotypical stuff but actually I'm eager to get things that no one EVER posts online or in magazines/books;

Being in the middle of this next group of adorable youngsters was quite a treat in and of itself.  I have a lot of photos of distorted noses sniffing my camera in that mob scene! But I say "treat" because they are the gentlest baby horses I've ever encountered.  Generally I'm on the lookout for the infamous baby "spin & kick" nonsense but these guys were definitely not rambunctious like that .. and it showed - they weren't all covered in nicks & scrapes babies usually give each other either! :)

 

I'm in your barn sneaking massages to your ponies...

Next, off to the horse park and what do I photograph?   :)  Inner thighs.. you can never have enough pictures of those.  What can I say.

You should totally click & enlarge this next one though;  it's the riding horses (some 30 or so) being turned loose in the streets to be herded down to their turnout at the end of the day.  They rope it off but it's something most people probably don't get a chance to see.  Pretty awesome to see all the different breeds, colors, shapes and sizes trotting & cantering "free" off through the park like this! :D

And at the end of a long day being on display the Akhal Teke takes a snooze on the back of the Marwari horse.

I really should/could share/say so much more but I'll never get around to it if I don't just post & share this.  Thank you enormously to Heather Moreton,  Laura Hornick Behning , Kylee Demers (and of course Wes) :) and then Kristina Lucas Francis (and of course Paul) ... and Elizabeth M., Premier farms, Willowbrook farms for their generosity in opening their homes & farms & hosting me!  What an amazing month it's been.  Looking forward to tucking in to some serious work this winter now. :D